Dear Holonet
I’m writing to you to get this off my chest. I’m writing this because I’m pretty much no longer playing the game. I’m not part of any guild, rp circle, groups. This player might be really angry at me for posting this. But it happened. Friends of this player might be angry at me for posting this and defend this player, and that’s a normal response, but it happened. When you abuse someone, the marks might not be visible but that doesn’t change the fact it happened.
A year ago a really shitty thing happened. I was in a guild, an LGBTA+ Safe space guild. After 3 months of increasing tensions and hostilities towards me that included mediation, an officer made an ic remark that was lewd. This wasn’t unusual, the officer was known for having an aggressive brash lewd character. The character made lewd remarks in singular form.
Singular remarks would be stuff like “you’re pink as a c*nt” or “Nice ass” Remarks directed at ONE PERSON.
I had talked to the officer about limits previously over voice chat when they had warned me their character was lewd, and I explained that I was generally fine with lewd remarks as long as they weren’t degrading to my character. So their character making a lewd remark was nothing to write home about except this remark involved two characters, a new player and my character. That was unusual for the character.
I had no heads up, I was a bystander in the rp. And the remark was about how not even new player’s dick in my character’s ass wouldn’t save him from his attitude.
It was upsetting. This was a person in power, who had been becoming increasingly hostile to me both icly and oocly. It felt personal for many reasons, the change from singular to plural, the increasing hostility between the officer and myself. But it was IC, and I asked the officer icly to tone it down as well as oocly. I also spoke to the officer who was the “HR” about the growing hostility icly. I had been asking for it to stop, repeatedly, both ic, and oocly.
When I no longer felt comfortable speaking to this officer (now called Angry officer for clarification) alone, and after talking to another officer who was friends with angry officer, I requested a mediation with the guild leader.
The first thing I asked for was for the hostility towards my character to be toned down. The first thing the angry officer did was to lash out me for asking for mediation. Because the angry officer had been talked to by the other guild leader about me approaching them for mediation.
The mediation, I was left feeling like I was the problem. I brought up the lewd comment that had upset me, saying that the lack of communication wasn’t ok. I had no warning it was going to involve my character, when angry officer only mentioned one player.
Angry officer told me that I should know how their character is by now. I didn’t need a warning. Angry officer stated that their character wasn’t an angel, and I was vilifying their character at every step of the way.
Two months after this mediation, conditions in the guild, and my mental health continued to deteriorate. I would ask other officers questions, and get cold snippy answers. Friendly officer said they’d rp with me but any time I tried to see when they were available, they never were, and I just felt like they only said they wanted to rp with me to be nice. It hurt, and I’d privately say so that it hurt. Another officer played a schoolyard bullying tactic on me. The excited oblivious kid is talking and you ask the kid about what they just said and if the kid is paying attention they’ll catch it but if they don’t they repeat what they said and all the people in on the joke can have a good laugh. and it wasn’t on accident I felt so humiliated when I scrolled up in guild chat and saw the officer post “scrolls up” because that tactic was used on me a lot.It felt like because of angry officer, the entire officer core saw me as a problem. They kicked me, allegedly they had secret screenshots no one ever got to see. And that’s when the panic attacks started.
Because of these events. Because Angry Officer’s pattern was lewd remarks in the singular form. Because of the continued pattern of harassment towards me including a guild event where multiple officers asked me if I was okay after Angry Officer snapped oocly at me publicly, I labeled the ic remark as sexual harassment. I did not label the ic remark as sexual harassment until after leaving the guild and speaking with a psychiatrist about my experiences.
I have had confirmation from friendly officer that Angry officer was encouraged to attack me by one of the gms. This would be the gm that the other officers are uncomfortable with and would be referred to as Scary GM.
I have had a few people, pick and pull apart why that IC remark made me uncomfortable from one of the guild leaders of that guild, to mods of another rp circle. I have been forced to explain myself, and left feeling like I had no right to feel uncomfortable about a sexual remark, that was made by someone that had been bullying me and happened to hit one of my triggers for personal trauma, suddenly being uncomfortable about a sexual remark made icly is invalid. I become someone who has a dangerous IC/OOC blur. This is not okay. This is saying that the comfort of people who haven’t been through a traumatic experience has more impact and validation than people who have been through trauma in a role play setting.
Angry officer still gives me panic attacks. When my depression is bad, I am more prone to them. I joined this guild for a safe space and this was a person in power, goaded on by a gm to pick on me.
What a horrible person to have so little love in their life that they have to do such a thing to feel like a big person.
